


Conventions

by Myracuulous



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myracuulous/pseuds/Myracuulous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magnus and Tesla race to retrieve a recently discovered Praxian artifact. Their search takes them to one of the few places where an artifact from the advanced abnormal culture can hide in plain sight: one of the country's top steampunk conventions. (Post S4)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ebay

**Author's Note:**

> This was a plot that jumped into my head unbidden in response to a question I kept asking myself while watching the series: does Tesla know that his historical self is a much-beloved hero of an entire subculture? The resulting fic is probably a little gimmick-y and self indulgent, but I had fun writing it and I hope you'll enjoy the read. New chapters to be posted every day or two as I get them edited into readability. Comments and constructive critique on my writing style are always appreciated.

"Ebay. Really, Helen, you know I still can't get over it."

"So you keep saying."

"An entire Sanctuary network, a crack team of archaeologists, and the most important historical find of the decade gets bought and sold on Ebay."

"Hardly the most important--"

"Perhaps we should start perusing yardsales next, it's really hard to say what else you might have missed. Mesopotamian electronics in thrift stores? Abnormals popping up in pet shops?"

"Can you-" Magnus started off tense, but forced herself to relax her voice. He had been bothering her about this for a good hour and a half since she'd explained exactly how they'd gotten this tip-off, but she needed to stay calm. "Can you just shut up for a few minutes, Nikola? We're here, anyways."

They'd stopped in front of a plain looking suburban house, a far cry from the usual abandoned warehouse or secret underground research facilities. In hindsight, Magnus considered that she probably shouldn't have invited Tesla along. The online auction had listed the artifact as a curiosity, and it had sold for a fraction of its real value. Chances were she'd ring the doorbell, give her cover story, have the artifact handed over and be back on a plane home before dinner. But it wasn't just any piece of technology, a few hours pouring over the grainy digital photos had convinced the scientist that this was a very literal time bomb, albeit one that probably hadn't worked for decades. Probably. As irritating as her oldest friend could be, if anything went wrong there was no one else Magnus would rather have around to... diffuse the situation.

By some miracle, Tesla actually did close his mouth for a few moments, long enough for them to walk up and ring the doorbell. It was answered by a woman in an apron and a white dress, well into her sixties at least and definitely not the person they were here looking for. 

"Good afternoon, madam" said Magnus, forcing her aggravation to take a back seat as she got down to business with a friendly smile. "We're looking for Benjamin Pennell, is he in?"

"Oh, goodness no, I'm afraid you've just missed him dear." The woman smiled, evidently more than happy to see them. "I'm his mother, just here housesitting for the weekend. He's got a hotel room for the convention, didn't he tell you?" She looked over at Tesla, who was standing in merciful silence. "The convention paid for it, even though he lives so close by, because of all the work he's been doing in setting it up." 

"I'm afraid we never got that message, no." Though she had no idea what the woman was talking about, Magnus played along.

"Well then, I'll go get you his room number and the address. He told me all about his friends visiting from England, the convention gets quite a lot of international visitors you know." Mrs. Pennell gestured for them to come in, and kept chatting away while she walked over to the laptop in the sitting room. "It's the third biggest in the country this year, and still growing. Benjamin helped start the whole thing, but I'm sure he's told you all about that. Ah, here we are. Are you driving? I'll just jot down the directions for you too. Goodness, driving after a long flight like that."

Magnus tried to examine her surroundings while the friendly woman chatted away. They were in a fairly ordinary suburban home in a fairly ordinary suburban neighbourhood, furnished with fairly ordinary furniture. His bookshelf, she noted, was mostly stacked with old science fiction novels, the complete works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne amongst a few other names she recognized and a few others she, surprisingly, didn't. Some of the knickknacks on his shelf looked as though they might have been other artifacts of importance, but a second glance revealed that they were all just sculptures of glue and metal made in a similar sort of aesthetic. Benjamin Pennell had one large poster framed and mounted on the far wall, in it a woman wearing a Victorian riding jacket stared out at a sky filled with what looked almost like Praxian zeppelins, but the style and construction was just a little bit wrong. 

"There you are, dear" said Mrs. Pennell, handing Magnus a slip of paper. "It's only ten minutes from here by car, I hope it's not too much of a drive. Can I get you anything before you go? You'll have to get Benjamin to send me some pictures once you're both in costume, yours already looks so lovely" she smiled at Tesla, who looked down with some concern at his three piece suit, "and I'm sure yours will be just as nice. I'm half tempted to go one year myself, just for the beautiful costumes. Ah, it really was a more elegant time, don't you think?"

"I'll be sure to let him know" replied Magnus quickly, afraid that if she kept this up much longer Mrs. Pennell would figure out that they had no idea what was going on. "But we really must be on our way, I don't want to be any later than we already are."

"Of course, of course" she walked them back to the door, and Magnus had to decline one more offer of refreshments before they left. "Have fun, you two, and do send pictures!"

Once the door was closed behind them, and they were on their way back to the car, Tesla was the first to break the silence. "Well, that was odd."

"Indeed. But I think we'd best try and find Mr. Pennell at this convention, we can't know for sure that artifact will remain inert and I'd rather see it back in our hands as quickly as possible." Costumes and pictures, this was starting to sound vaguely familiar to Magnus, and she knew just who to call for details.


	2. Phonecall

"Henry, I need a quick favour"

"Sure thing doc, fire away."

Magnus has let Tesla drive, she was willing to risk his road rage for the chance to call her Sanctuary. They needed to know that she was going to take a little longer than planned, and she needed some expert advice.

"Our buyer is away for the weekend, attending some sort of convention. There was something about costumes, so I thought it might be your area of expertise."

"I don't remember any comic conventions in the area, let me just google it for you. Do you know where it's being held?"

Magnus rattled off the address that Mrs. Pennell had given her, and heard the quick keystrokes of Henry typing it out on the other end. "Here's something" he said after a moment, "not one I've ever heard of, but judging by the name... dude."

"Henry?"

"This is gonna make finding your Praxian artifact a little difficult, doc. It's called Gearcon, and from the looks of it it's a steampunk convention."

"Steampunk?" Magnus had never heard the word before.

"It's sort of a genre, like superheroes or mystery novels or whatever" started Henry. From the tone he was taking, Magnus knew she'd picked the right man to explain. "It's Victorian science fiction, or things written like Victorian science fiction. Stories about people from the nineteenth century coming up with ray guns and zeppelins and time machines and stuff. They've got books, music, graphic novels... dude." The part of Henry that worked for the Sanctuary network finally caught up with his nerdy half, "Magnus, you're practically like their god."

This was all new to Magnus, but it made a certain kind of sense. She herself had very much enjoyed reading the earliest attempts at science fiction, despite their many inaccuracies she'd always appreciated the effort that people like Jules and Herbert and Mary and the like had put into imagining the impossible. Of course, living through the Victorian era twice had given her a firsthand understand of all the parts of it that were less than glamorous, but through the future's rose-coloured glasses Magnus could see how there were parts that could be admired. "I don't think I can go about explaining my credentials there, Henry." They were trying to keep a low profile, and she was supposed to be dead.

"Right, obviously. Well, it shouldn't be to hard to find your guy. Says here he's on staff organizing the masquerade - that's the costume contest - tonight. You can probably find out where he is through the staff desk, looks like he's one of the head volunteers."

"Thank you, Henry."

"Let me just see if I can hack into their system and get you some prereg tickets. It's a pretty big con, you'll be waiting for hours if you haven't bought in advance. But I think I can - oh my God."

"Henry? What's wrong?"

There was a muffled sound on the other end of the phone, like Henry stifling a laugh. "Nothing, doc. Nothing. Vlad's still helping you out on this one, right?"

"Yes..."

"Dude, I would pay money to see his - I gotta show Will something, call me back if you have any trouble."

He hung up very quickly, which was odd. But Magnus trusted Henry with her life, whatever had come up must have been important.

"Well this day just keeps getting better" Tesla chimed in with his usual sarcasm.

"Eavesdropping, then?"

"Vampire, remember? Damnit! Turn signals, have you HEARD of them?"

"Well, I think it could be fun" Magnus ignored Tesla's running dialogue with every other driver on the road. If he was going to be the pessimist about this, then she would take optimist. "A little trip down memory lane, right?"

"More like a bunch of acne-ridden children trampling on a history we both lived through. You can't honestly be looking forwards to this."

"Well, it beats another run through the sewers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There seems to be a real steampunk convention called GEAR con, any resemblance is purely coincidental. I needed a generic name for a fictional con, and all the good ones were already taken.


	3. Cosplay

The line-up for tickets taught Helen Magnus three things. First, that Henry must have a remarkable ability to separate work and recreation. Every few seconds she jumped at what had to be some exciting and potentially dangerous new species, only to find it was a person covered in spray paint or prosthetics. She'd spoken to many beings in the abnormal community who enjoyed this sort of popular culture conventions as a chance to blend in for once, but seeing it in person made her realize just how true that was. Even she couldn't tell at a glance if some of these people were other than human, which was nerve-wracking to say the least. How Henry did this for fun was beyond her.

Secondly, Henry's assessment of the challenge this would pose was also spot on. To the untrained eye, the Praxian device would blend in perfectly with the strange aesthetic these people seemed to be set on. If Benjamin had brought the artifact along then despite the fact that it was over three feet in diameter, no one who saw it would be paying it much notice.

Thirdly, and she hated to admit it, Tesla was at least partly right as well. Most of the attendees seemed to know very little about actual Victorian attire. Some of the fabric choices were odd, you'd never pair good lace with cheap velvet like that, but the most pervasive problem was the undergarments. Nearly all of the women (and some of the men) were wearing theirs over top of their dresses.

"Why did we ever let the corset go out of style, Helen?"

"Because they were an instrument of torture."

"Did you keep any of yours? I always had a thing for that red dress you used to wear, the things it did to your... waistline." The crowds had forced them fairly close together, and his wandering eyes made it clear this was not the body part to which he was referring.

"I can still shoot you, you know."

They got inside and made it to the staff desk without much hassle, save for the occasional pause when someone asked to take Tesla's picture. His suit wasn't that dated, but it was more Victorian than half the outfits people were wearing and apparently that was enough to mark him as a costumed attendee. Most of those who asked were women, and Magnus could see his already enormous ego swelling even as he had to politely decline. Every world government thought that he had died (again) in the Sanctuary's destruction, and however small the chance that he'd be recognized there was no sense leaving photographic proof to the contrary.

Small mercy, Benjamin had just gone up to his hotel room to change. Magnus dragged her old friend away from the rather attractive young lady behind the staff desk so they could catch up with him before he was back amidst the crowds.

Henry had dug up all the information he could find on Benjamin Pennell as soon as they'd found out he'd won the auction, so Magnus recognized him almost immediately from his profile photo. On his social network accounts he looked like your average white collar worker, just a little plump around the edges from an easy life with slowly balding hair and modern but unassuming glasses. He was thirty four, and he worked as a certified accountant. Now, standing in the hallway of the third floor of a nice hotel, a black top hat was covering his small bald spot. He was wearing a nice, but poorly fitted three piece suit in brown and white, with a row of antique vacuum tubes sewn onto the front. What really stopped Magnus from spotting him right off was his awful fake moustache, black despite his brown hair. Regardless of his appearance, the man wore a huge grin and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely as he used the mirror in the hallway to adjust his cravat.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Pennell?" said Magnus.

"Oh, are you with the volunteers? Tell them I'll be down in a minute." He had the same friendly attitude his mother had towards strangers, it seemed. If only every investigation could be this easy.

"No, we're not with the convention I'm afraid, we-"

"Oh, the press!" And his mother's habit of jumping to convenient conclusions, thank goodness. "You're a few hours early, I wasn't expecting you just yet. I'm still getting my costume together, I'd like it to be just right."

"Made it yourself?" Tesla asked. He made it sound innocent enough, but Magnus recognized a veiled insult from him when she heard one. Now that pretty women in revealing costumes were out of the picture, the vampire had gone back to his usual policy of looking down on everyone and everything that wasn't him.

"It's very nice" added Magnus. They needed this man's cooperation to retrieve the artifact quickly, no sense starting off on the wrong foot.

Fortunately, Benjamin took the compliment and ignored the jab. "You like it?" He spun in place, showing off a rather poorly embroidered lightning pattern on the back. "I'm Nikola Tesla!"


	4. Complications

It was hard not to forget the mission and start laughing.

"You see, every year we choose a real historical person from the Victorian era and use them and their life story as a sort of theme for the convention." Magnus had a perfect view of her dear friend's face in the mirror as Benjamin launched into an enthusiastic explanation. "Nicola Tesla was a nineteenth century mad scientist, he patented all sorts of crazy inventions that were hundreds of years before their time," confusion, irritation, then a hint of pride flitted across the vampire's face. "Of course most of them didn't work," and promptly dissolved in favour of rage.

"EXCUSE me?"

Magnus put a hand out to stop Tesla before he did something he'd regret. "What my friend means is that we're not from the press." She looked around, there was only one other person in the hallway, another convention attendee if her all-leather outfit was any indicator. Magnus lowered her voice. "Listen, a few weeks ago you made a purchase from an online auction. Now this is a little difficult to explain, but that object is very important and very dangerous. I'm going to need you to-"

"Hand it over!" Magnus had expected some quip like that from Tesla, but it wasn't his voice coming from directly behind her. The faint click of a gun being readied confirmed it, and she slowly turned around to come face to face with the leather-clad woman pointing a very real weapon at them.

Magnus slowly raised her hands in surrender. Tesla did the same, with even more reluctance; he'd just been slighted, and he certainly wasn't above misdirecting a little anger in a fight. If it came to that.

"Well, looks like I wasn't the only one to trace that auction. I'm impressed, I think only a handful of people on the surface would recognize a real Praxian artifact if they saw one." Their new opponent was tall, blonde, and evidently in peak physical form. Her eyes looked almost feline, but bright purple, and something about her smile gave the distinct impression of predator. Definitely an abnormal, but not a species that Magnus recognized. That made her either a one-off mutation, or something from Hollow Earth she'd never had a chance to categorize. "Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which one of you is Benjamin Pennell?"

At the back of the group, it was just starting to dawn on Benjamin that this wasn't part of the convention. Magnus considered throwing Tesla into the role of Mr. Pennell, but the real man spoke up before she could act.

"I am" he said. To his credit he wasn't whimpering or trying to run, or even striding boldly forwards to face the danger like it was something out of a comic book. Pretty good head in a crisis, for an accountant.

"Good. Sixteen days ago you bought a Praxian bomb on ebay. Hand it over now, or I kill you. Capish?"

"I- I can't. I mean, I don't have it anymore."

"Well then, who does?"

Benjamin hesitated, doing the math in his head. Whoever he'd given the artifact to was going to be the next one this woman threatened, but staying silent was saying no to the madwoman with a gun.

"Do I need to make a demonstration?" The leather-clad woman tilted her gun at Magnus instead, and started to pull the trigger.

Magnus reached for her stun gun, but Tesla was faster. A sweep of his hand and their abnormal adversary's metal gun was flung halfway down the hall. Magnus' first shot went wide over the her shoulder, giving the violet-eyed woman time to draw a knife from her belt and close in with superhuman speed. Definitely an abnormal, and definitely a professional, but she hadn't figured out that the real threat in close quarters combat wasn't the one with the gun.

Before the abnormal could even finish her first wild sweep of the knife, Magnus heard a familiar hiss and ducked. The mercenary came face to face with the world's last living vampire, and her knife scraped uselessly against his nearly indestructible claws. She changed tactics immediately, ditching her blade and crashing headlong into him with more strength than a creature twice her size. Tesla was braced for another knife attack, the tackle caught him off guard and they went barrelling through the door of the nearest hotel room like it was made of cardboard.

Magnus fired again, this time the crackling bolt from the stunner hit her opponent squarely on the shoulder. Too little too late, though, the mercenary was already back on her feet and barely slowed by the low-energy blast. Her bright purple eyes looked between Magnus's gun and Tesla, who'd taken the brunt of the door and was still picking himself up. She ran for the window, and Magnus got off one more miss before she'd crashed through it and was gone.

"Damnit!" Magnus ran to the window to follow, but the crowd of confused people below already masked their assailant from view. No way they could catch up now.

Her second thought was for Nikola, of course, but a little scuff like that hadn't bruised anything but his ego. He was already up and fussing with his suit, which had also managed to survive the altercation unscathed. He was muttering something under his breath, which to Magnus sounded very much like "most of them didn't work my ass."

Benjamin was very wisely pressed against the far wall of the hallway, trying to stay out of the way. "What... what just happened?"

"Is there somewhere we can talk, Mr. Pennell? I think we have a bit of explaining to do."


	5. Allies

In the end, telling the truth had seemed the easiest recourse. Perhaps it was just the open attitude of the convention, a meeting of minds all interested in dreaming the impossible, but Magnus decided to sit the costumed accountant down in his hotel room and explain the broad strokes of the whole affair. She left out Nikola's name, he'd been adding enough derisive jabs at poor Benjamin without another reminder of that little fiasco.

"You're monsters-are-real girl!" Benjamin exclaimed once Magnus had finished her initial summary.

"Pardon?"

"From the video, it was all over youtube. Dr. Magnum-"

"Magnus" Tesla offered the correction before she had the chance.

"Dr. Magnus. I thought it was a hoax, I mean it had to be, but you were serious!" He stopped to reattach his fake moustache, which seemed to come off every time he spoke. "The news said you died."

"Let's... not go spreading around any evidence to the contrary, then." Magnus said quickly. "I would like to get this artifact back in safe storage without letting anyone know I'm here."

"I wasn't lying to that-" he fished for the word "-abnormal that attacked us. I really don't have it anymore. And I don't think I can get it back for you."

"Why not?"

"I didn't buy it for myself. We wanted something really cool as the best in show prize for the masquerade this year, it's always a steampunk art piece you see and this... bomb thing, well I didn't know it was real. The listing just said it was a one of a kind sculpture, so I bought it."

"Couldn't you ask for it back?"

Benjamin shook his head. "It was on the con's budget, and the contest is tonight. A week ago I could have found a replacement maybe... But now? Not without explaining to most of the staff who you are and why you're here, it'd be a major breach in con protocol."

Something they could save as a last resort, then. "Where is the artifact now?"

"Centre stage, it's part of the display there until the end of the convention."

"Great, so now we need to steal the bomb out from under the noses of a hundred sweaty fanboys instead of just one." Tesla chimed in, helpful as always. If he paced for much longer he'd wear a hole in the carpet.

"We don't need to steal anything." Magnus kept her voice level and calm, this situation was hardly out of hand just yet. "The contest can go on as planned, and we'll speak with the winner purchasing their prize after the fact. In the meantime, we need to track down our purple-eyed friend and make sure there's no one else like her about."

"Another combat-trained abnormal antiques dealer who speaks Praxian and browses ebay in her spare time? Well that'd just be our luck."

A thought occurred to Magnus while her friend was complaining, a ridiculous fancy that on any other day she would have let pass without action. But she'd been on a plane with Nikola Tesla for three hours this morning, and he was a very bad influence. His competitive playfulness was contagious, and this was a coup she couldn't pass up.

"Well, there would be one easier way to get our hands on the artifact..." She let the thought hang in the air, until Tesla realized what she meant by it.

"Oh no. Don't even think about thinking about that, Helen."

"If you're thinking about entering," said Benjamin, "I really should warn you that the competition is fierce."

"Oh, I'd expect" for once it was Magnus grinning playfully, and her favourite vampire looking annoyed, "but given this year's theme... well, my friend here does an excellent Nikola Tesla impression."


	6. Showtime

"There is not enough wine in the world, Helen, for me to ever forgive you."

"Nikola, I'm surprised you aren't enjoying yourself."

The main floor of the convention was far more crowded than Magnus had expected. She'd always had the vague impression that Henry was an exception, and that most of those who attended an event like this would be more like a certain claims adjustor she'd once met. But Gearcon seemed to attract all sorts, and the crowd here wouldn't have looked out of place in an open street somewhere but for the costumes. They were young and old, fit and out of shape, poor and successful, men and women and families with children in tow wearing their own little costumes.

"Enjoying myself? I'm surrounded by the very definition of the teeming masses, they're like locusts. With worse fashion sense."

"I'm actually finding it rather heartening. Think about it, every one of these people made the conscious decision to leave their ordinary lives and embrace the impossible, even for just one weekend. People from all different walks of life. They saw things that were strange, and thought they were fascinating instead of dangerous. I always feared the world would never be ready to know about abnormals, but it might just prove me wrong yet."

"Very poetic." Tesla pushed in closer to Magnus to avoid a beanpole-thin man in a papier mache diving helmet who was rushing to get past. "Any sign of our party crasher?"

"Not yet." Magnus was confident the mercenary woman would turn up sooner than later, she couldn't afford to lay low for long. She and Tesla were circling around the convention floor, spiraling closer to the central theatre space where the artifact was on display. "Well, you may have a point about their fashion choices, I could do without the constant reminders of that horrible thing you used to have on your face."

They'd already passed at least a dozen men (and a few women) dressed up as the historical mad scientist, complete with his former signature facial hair, and the real Nikola Tesla cringed at the remark. "I had that moustache for decades, Helen, and none of you ever told me how hideous it looked."

"Well you were so proud of it!" Magnus elbowed her old friend in the side, grinning. "When you came back to Oxford that one autumn and showed it off, why, none of us had the heart."

"You know I only kept it for so long because you once told me it was dashing."

"Well I lied. You look much better without it."

Nikola leaned in closer still, warm breath raising the hairs on Helen's neck. "So glad you've noticed" he whispered, inches from her ear.

Magnus was so distracted that she almost missed it, a flash of blonde hair and black leather through the crowd that looked familiar. "Nikola" she said at barely more than a whisper, but she didn't need to explain for him to understand. He snapped back to attention, his superhuman senses focused once again on the crowd.

"There" he said, spotting their target through the masses. The abnormal mercenary saw them only a second later, and soon both parties were on the move. Running through this sort of crowd was impossible, but the abnormal pushed and ducked and headed for every open space she could find, leaving Magnus and Tesla to try and do the same to keep up. One glance between the old friends was all it took to communicate that they'd split up, one person squeezing through the crowd alone was easier than two trying to stay together.

The mercenary finally pushed through to the few meters of open space in the centre of the wide convention hall floor, where there were no booths or displays to attract the crowds. She broke into a full run, with Magnus hot on her heels. The abnormal was faster, but Magnus had won fights against far stronger opponents with brains over brawn. What were her resources here? Henry had spent countless hours as a teenager giddily explaining his Comicon experiences to her, even if that had been over a hundred years ago by her reckoning and she hadn't been paying as much attention and she could have been. Still, he'd painted her a picture of what these things were like, and she had to believe that gave her some knowledge of the terrain.

Helen Magnus took a risk, because risks were what let you win impossible fights.

"Halt, villain!" She'd had two centuries to perfect projecting her voice, and she was sure half the convention had heard her first booming remark. To emphasize the point she drew and fired her stun gun, aiming high above the crowd where the energy would dissipate harmlessly before it hit the ceiling. The mercenary looked back at her like she was crazy, but she wasn't the only one who was staring.

"We're ending this here, just you and me" Magnus continued, and the crowd actually applauded when she fired another shot at the ceiling. The abnormal realized what was happening now, the crowd of convention attendees had closed in around them and blocked off all escape. Magnus couldn't rely on Tesla getting through to help now, but her opponent was left without anywhere to run.

The abnormal launched herself at Magnus, relying on superior speed and strength over finesse. Magnus ducked and rolled, producing another cheer from the audience. The abnormal hissed as if in pain, wincing at the sound. Enhanced hearing too, good, that would make fighting in a loud environment like this almost unbearable.

She landed a shot on the mercenary before she'd had a chance to recover from the charge, it would take a few more like that to bring her down but Magnus couldn't risk turning up the setting with so many humans around. It did slow her, though, when she attacked again her reflexes were more on par with a well-trained human's. They traded a few close-quarters blows, each one riling up the audience further and enraging the abnormal. Great for making her careless, but the one vicious blow that did strike Magnus sent her flying all the way to the edge of their makeshift stage. Her gun slipped from her hands, clattering to the ground some four feet away.

The abnormal was above her before Magnus could recover her weapon. "You're right, this does end here. Good try, sweetie, maybe you could have beat me if your friend hadn't run off to hide."

Magnus couldn't see his face in the crowd, but when she felt the cold metal of her weapon fly into her hand she knew the abnormal had just fallen for the same trick twice. She had the gun held, pointed, and fired before the mercenary even realized it was there, three solid shots right in the chest with enough juice to bring down a full-sized elephant.

The crowd went wild with applause, not the reaction that Magnus was used to after a fight. She got to her feet and stared down at the fallen abnormal, gun still pointed at the mercenary's chest just in case her power set included a fast metabolism as well.

"Al...right" said the abnormal. Damn she was sturdy, still conscious after all that. "You win, it's yours."

"And you won't come after us again?" Magnus tried not to look relieved, it was a three hour drive to the nearest Sanctuary and she hadn't fancied packing this woman into containment. Letting her go would mean trouble another day, but now that she had a face and a reputation to follow the scientist was certain she could catch up once the artifact was dealt with.

"Wasn't... sure I could disarm it in time anyways. The damned thing's your problem now, I'm out. You have my word."

Disarm? Magnus followed the abnormal's gaze, in all the commotion they'd run right into the room around the centre stage. Up on the raised platform, blocked off by pylons and a pair of volunteer guards, the Praxian artifact was on display. But what was supposed to be a centuries-old piece of broken technology was now lit up and glowing a vivid orange, with a counter on the front displaying time remaining in the dead city's ancient language. If the artifact's more violent features were working as well as its clock, in ninety minutes the entire convention and half the surrounding city were going to be destroyed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now commence clearing out the centre stage room" the hall's loudspeaker crackled overhead while Magnus was still staring at the active bomb. "Please proceed to the nearest exit and clear space for the setup volunteers. Gearcon Masquerade will be starting in one hour."


	7. Corsets

"Alright, we're lucky that skits are up first this year. I've spoken to some people, and you two will be the third group up." The last half hour had been a whirlwind as suddenly the frivolous fancy of getting Tesla up on stage to compete had become their one chance to disarm the artifact without causing an incident with hundreds of witnesses. "I hope your costume's alright Dr. Magnus, it was the best I could find in the dealer's room on such short notice."

"I'm sure it will be fine, Mr. Pennell. Thank you."

"And here's your stuff, Mr... um, I never got your name actually..." Benjamin handed Tesla another bag from the convention's shopping area, and hurried them both into his empty hotel room. There wasn't even time for an awkward silence when the vampire didn't answer. "You'd better hurry and change, you're already late for the green room and I'm going to have a hell of a time convincing them to let you in."

Benjamin closed the door for them and ran to check up on the rest of the project. Since Tesla made no move to be the gentleman, Magnus carted her stuff off to the bathroom and closed that door too. It was a thin enough divider that she could still hear Tesla's every complaint.

"This isn't even shatterproof glass. Or tinted. Do these gears even do anything?"

"I have it on good authority that goggles are this year's must-have accessory" Magnus' smile turned to a frown when she started trying to work out the dress she'd been given. It was so familiar in some respects, and yet they'd gotten key details completely wrong. It was like someone had tried to reconstruct the fashions she'd grown up with from pictures, and just made things up when they needed to fill in the blanks. Which, she supposed, was probably what had actually happened. It was also clear they'd brought her one of those fancy leather outside-wear corsets.

"They're a safety hazard. These people wouldn't know real science if it electrocuted them."

"Have you put on your moustache yet?"

"Please. Allow me to savour my last few moments of dignity."

But when Magnus emerged in her outfit, he'd worked up the courage to install the fake facial hair. Oh, now this did bring back memories, her in a bustled dress and him looking just like he had back in Oxford. He'd been so much younger then, not just in years. Back when his ego couldn't fill every single corner of the room, before he'd coined his debonair smile and shrugged off the naiveté that had lost him a fortune in patents to Edison. He'd grown stronger, smarter, and meaner over the decades, but then so had she. Was that awkward little Serbian still in there, under a hundred years of the vampire's charm?

"Ah, leather and low cut dresses. Will you be adding this ensemble to your regular wardrobe after this?" No, apparently not.

With her trip down memory lane brought to an abrupt dead end, Magnus went back to snapping at Tesla. "We don't have time for games right now, Nikola. Help me lace up."

She turned her back to the vampire, who was more than happy to walk over and assist. His long, elegant fingers against the nape of her neck, brushing away her hair, took all her concentration to ignore. Give the man an inch and he'd take a mile, but... well, she didn't keep inviting him along on these excursions exclusively for his brilliant mind.

The sharp, sudden tightness as Tesla pulled hard snapped her back to reality for a second time. "You don't have to take it off right away" he continued. "Maybe after I save the day, a nice evening in a hotel room. Just you, me, and" oof, another pull to tighten the bottom half "a bottle of something... hmm, full-bodied and a little earthy?"

"Believe me, I am taking this damned thing off the second we're done."

"In front of all those people? My, Helen, I'm shocked." She'd walked right into that one, so all she could do was roll her eyes and try to start breathing again.

Benjamin hadn't been kidding when he said they were late, the second they got to the green room they were grabbed, tagged with numbers, pulled aside, and placed in line for only half a minute before they were dragged off again to be taken from the green room to backstage. It all felt almost like being in a real theatre production, something Magnus hadn't done in... oh, half a century at least. From the sounds of it there was quite the audience, and they'd have to keep them entertained and unsuspecting while they diffused a live bomb on stage. And they hadn't had time to come up with any sort of script.

Benjamin met them back stage, he'd changed out of his Tesla costume and into the plain black shirt and pants that all the stagehands wore to stay inconspicuous. "Okay, here's your headsets. I've let them know you're going to be using the artifact as a prop, so no one should stop you. Remember, skits are five minutes or less, if you take any longer the stage ninjas will try and drag you off."

"I understand. We'll be quick."

"Good luck!."

Benjamin left to wrangle the previous performers off stage, leaving Magnus and Tesla to themselves for a final few seconds before the show. The clock on the bomb kept ticking, they couldn't take much longer than five minutes even if they'd wanted to because their time was nearly up.

"This is beyond humiliating" whispered Tesla, and to Magnus' trained ear there was something more behind it. He actually sounded nervous of all things, but maybe that was her imagination. Will would have called it projecting. Nonetheless she smiled, and put a hand on his back.

"Just... be yourself" she suggested. He looked puzzled by the suggestion for a moment, then his eyes lit up that way they always did when he'd just come up with some new brilliant idea. The smile that followed it unnerved Magnus to no end, more so when it was followed by his eyes turning dark and his teeth growing out to their full vampiric length.

"Well, if you insist."


	8. Spotlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, abandoned fanfiction, one of the perils of the internet. Starting on an unfinished fic last posted to three years ago is an exercise in futile bravery; reaching the end brings only a cliffhanger, with but the slimmest hope of ever discovering how our heroes will get out of this one alive (or, you know, how they'll smooch. Whichever.)
> 
> Then again, every once in awhile, someone leaves a kudos on a three-year-old fic, and the author blearily remembers she wrote the last two chapters, and just never got around to posting them.
> 
> Enjoy :)

Every light in the room save for the dim glow of the Praxian artifact flickered out at the same time. The spotlights, the red exit signs, every piece of electronics (and, mercifully, every camera and cellphone) turned itself off at the vampire's command. 

When one spotlight turned back on, he'd already planted himself front and centre stage. "I am the immortal vampire Nikola Tesla" he said, and apparently he'd left the sound systems intact because his voice boomed through all the speakers, "master of science and electricity."

The crowd went absolutely wild. "Oh dear God" Magnus muttered, but the headset microphones were better quality than she'd imagined because that too was caught and broadcast over the speakers.

"You, ladies and gentlemen, are lucky" Tesla continued, slipping out of his vampire guise and turning the rest of the stage lights back on. "Because today, my lovely assistant and I--"

"Assistant?"

"-My lovely partner and I are going to save all your worthless, short little lives. You see someone, someone thought it was a terribly bright idea to put an ancient, fully active bomb in the middle of a city and see if anyone would notice, and since none of you have caught onto the fact that this hunk of metal is counting down til doomsday it falls to me to--"

"They don't need the full backstory, Nikola, can we get on with it?" He'd gone from reluctant to revelling in record time, and the only thing Tesla liked half as much as science was an appreciative audience. Would she actually have to drag him over to help her with the damned artifact? He shrugged at the crowd, causing them to laugh, and she went ahead and pried the back off the bomb to get a look at the insides.

"All in good time, my dear" he said, sauntering over to the artifact like he owned the place. "It's an ancient time bomb build by an incredibly advanced civilization, shouldn't take me more than a minute to-- hmm."

"'Hmm?'" Magnus did not like the sound of hmm.

"Well, it's just this wire here seems to be completely bypassing the usual safety features. I mean, these things usually come with an off switch but--"

"--This one doesn't." Magnus finished for him. "Nikola..."

"Not a problem!" He said, though she could tell he was more worried than he was letting on. "We can bypass the whole system if we just pull out the main energy core." 

"Won't that set the thing off?"

"Only if any of the internal sensors are working. I should be able to keep them off with a focused magnetic field, I'll just need to concentrate. And all you need to do is pull that little glowing blue thing," he pointed at a bright azure crystal about a foot inside the device, buried amidst the strange glass-like Praxian wires, "without letting it touch anything on the way out."

Right. That was all. Just like performing surgery, except in front of a live audience with absolutely no room for error. 

Tesla stood back up to his full height, and you could feel it in the air when he started the field. His hands crackled with blue lightning, his eyes had shifted back to jet black as he fought to keep the field perfectly level.

The audience's clapping was distracting, and it only got louder as she stuck her hand in the artifact. They were -- good lord -- actually chanting Tesla's name. How would his ego survive, stuck focusing on the task at hand instead of running to revel in the praise of his adoring public?

But she couldn't afford to rush this, not even for him. Slowly she reached her steady hands into the belly of the bomb, imagining it was something ordinary like a Pteradon's third heart. The power source came out with a little snap, but it would leech out enough residual energy to fuel the device until it was completely free. 

She glanced up for half a second, big mistake. The stagehand in the left wing was pointing at his wrist, the universal signal to keep an eye on the time. More pressure, great.

"Helen..." growled Tesla through gritted vampire teeth.

"I'm working on it!" Every wire felt like it was a hair's breath away, Magnus held her breath for fear that even the slightest twitch might end it all. Two more inches, then one, the Praxian device was beeping like mad in protest of her actions but she was almost...

There!

She held the little vial up triumphantly, and was greeted with a hearty round of applause. Tesla looked like he wanted to collapse, but he could run on adrenalines and praise for long enough to get off the stage. 

"Still in a hurry to get out of those clothes?" He still had the energy to flirt, and the decency to take off his headset first. The bomb was harmless now, and Nikola was going to be just fine.


	9. Trophy

"Second place. SECOND place." Nicola Tesla was lounged out over one of the nicer sofas, trying to drown himself in a very good red wine.

"Dude, that's pretty good for your first con" Henry had been the one checking the results online, results that Tesla had claimed not to care about at all. 

"No one asked you, wondernerd."

Henry snorted, but he couldn't have been surprised. He got up and left the room rather than make some snide comment back, leaving Magnus to slip into his seat and take over perusing the Gearcon website.

In the end, the whole mission had been a complete success. Without its power core the Praxian artifact was essentially useless, and Magnus had already arranged to have the winner suitably bribed to retrieve the shell for further study. Benjamin had thanked them profusely for their help, and promised not to tell a soul about their true purpose. He also couldn't help but offer them some congratulations on their unintentional performance.

"You really got into character!" Benjamin complimented the vampire, who was relishing the removal of his ridiculous fake facial hair seconds after they had cleared the stage. "You look just like him too, you know, with the moustache on. Have you played Nikola Tesla before?"

Tesla only rolled his eyes and ignored the question, instead taking a second to smooth out his ruffled hair and static-charged suit. Benjamin was left looking confused until all the pieces suddenly clicked into place.

"Oh... oh my God, you weren't acting."

Back at New Sanctuary, Magnus gleefully scrolled through the online comments about their little escapade. "Looks like no one managed to record any footage of us, you did a good job with the cameras."

"Obviously." Tesla poured himself another glass of wine, at least his third since the bad news of his penultimate finish.

"We were a fan favourite, though. Quite a lot of people wanted us to win." Even if none of them knew what had really happened, it was sort of fun getting complimented by strangers on a job well done. Magnus could understand why Henry always took so much care in making a costume each year. "Hmm, a lot of people thought the vampire part was a little overdone. Apparently it was rather ridiculous, making Nikola Tesla one of the immortal undead."

"Philistines." But the real anger had long since left his voice, now Tesla was just being melodramatic to her teasing. He poured her a glass to match his own, he always fetched two glasses when he was stealing her wine, and Magnus let the computer be so she sit beside her old friend.

"I suppose I only have myself to blame for that."

"Twice over now, Helen. It's like you have a thing for me." 

"Or just a thing for vampires."

"I... could work with that." Give the man an inch... Nikola would never change.

"So, did being up on stage in front of a swooning audience reignite your plans for world domination?"

"Who says I ever gave those up?" 

"Not under my roof you don't. It's me or the world, Nikola, you can't have both." 

Even though he sat there and smiled and looked every bit the villain as usual, Magnus meant the line as nothing more than a joke. Maybe tomorrow it wouldn't be, if some new plan brought his dubious morals to clash again with hers. But tonight he caught her eye and that playful smile turned serious, and nothing else really needed to be said. For tonight, at least, he'd made his choice. 

Helen Magnus leaned in closer, and he wordlessly put an arm around her shoulder. Tonight, at least, was going to be pleasant. And tomorrow?

Well, tomorrow would always be interesting.


End file.
